Search

As the child of a police captain and the grandchild of a chief of police, I obey the rules. I don't run with scissors. I wait 2 hours after eating […]

For all you Trekkies: Don't get too excited. This column isn't about those who served on the Starship Enterprise. Instead, I'm boldly going where no one has gone before (at […]

Even before autumn officially arrived on Sept. 23, I could feel it in the air. The slightly cooler breeze taunted me that summer would be ending soon. While I longed […]

It's hard to come back from 8 glorious days in Alaska without feeling transformed. It is almost indescribable to be in a place where wilderness still prevails and those who […]

It's easy to shift into autopilot during the summertime. There must be something in the air that makes us feel relaxed, less focused, and more prone to playing hooky. While […]

OK, I admit it. I'm a merry prankster. I love bad puns and jokes that make you moan. I have no shame in stealing anything funny and adding it to […]

While recovering from minor surgery that turned into major surgery, I had plenty of time for one of my favorite pastimes: reading. I devoured the first six of the Harry […]

I know I'm in the minority, but I love to get into heated discussions with people who may not share my point of view (political, religious, or anything in between). […]

If you're like me, when you get a new gadget you try to save time by not reading the instruction manual. You simply assume that, because you're a person of […]

Yes, another year has dropped anchor. But 2006 brings with it the same problems as 2005. Security concerns, funding worries, and ethics questions seem to cut across all aspects of […]

I met my first Gulf Coast evacuee last weekend. Katy seems to be doing well in her new surroundings in Bowie, Md., as a long-term guest of my friend, Robin. […]

Well, I'm moving--even if it is only 5 miles down the road to another town. As I labored over Labor Day weekend, getting my current abode ready for the realtors, […]

Everything's relative--relatively speaking. Yet, my version of reality may be different than yours. While humans have a practically identical basic OS and many shared components, we are certainly wired differently. […]

My friend Sheri told me that her daughter Kelsey, who was about to graduate from high school, had a severe case of senioritis. It's been 25 years since my senior […]

When I began typing this, the Super Bowl kickoff was about 4 hours away. As you read this, it's now March, a month associated with leprechauns, the arrival of spring, […]

As much as the Internet has helped connect more people, more cultures, more languages, and more ideas through shared information and interaction, there is still much discord in our world. […]

Although it didn't exactly make the headlines during the final weeks of the presidential campaign, sometime in October, a short article appeared in my newspaper that said the Farmer's Almanac […]

For many of us here at Information Today, Inc., Labor Day has a double meaning this year, since we have welcomed six babies--three girls and three boys--into the ITI family […]

I need a vacation! And luckily, I'll get one in the middle of this month when I visit my dad (aka Mr. Weather Channel) in hopefully sunny--I say hopefully, as […]

It's May. Or as it's known throughout TV-dom, the regular-season-ending 'sweeps' period. Sweeps, for those not in the know, happen four times a year: February, May, August, and November. May […]

Tunesmith Paul Simon had it right: 'April, come she will.' Not that she doesn't take her dear, sweet time, mind you. But she gets here. And with April comes one […]

Sigh. It seems like 'Yesterday,' not 40 years ago, that John, Paul, George, and Ringo invaded the U.S. with their 'really big' debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. While the […]

It's January. And you know what that means: It's prediction time. As I write this, New Jersey has had its first major snowfall of the season. The weather forecasters started […]

I should have known not to pick up the ringing phone when my new caller ID box flashed 'unavailable.' But what if it were the newly available Ben Affleck calling […]

'Try to remember the kind of September when grass was green and grain was yellow.... Try to remember and if you remember, then follow.' Even when I was little, these […]

It's summertime, and while the living might be easy (at least according to Gershwin's Porgy and Bess), if you're a TV buff, it means there's going to be a lot […]

By the time you read this, it will be spring--even in New Jersey. March Madness will have been extended into April Angst as all the crazy college hoops fans out […]

I used to drive a former colleague batty (maybe that's why she left) by making puns with songs that would then get stuck in her head for the rest of [...]

The phrase 'social graces' doesn't get used much these days, but if you're of a certain age, you know it has to do with how you interact, especially in public, [...]

This month, the content I'm reviewing comes from Online Searcher (OLS). Published bimonthly under the keen editorial tutelage of Marydee Ojala, OLS also boasts Barbara Quint as its senior editor. [...]

It seems the only way people and even organizations communicate these days is electronically. While social media might enable the masses to connect via multiple formats, what about that old-fashioned [...]

The new year brought some changes to a few Information Today, Inc. (ITI) publications, specifically, the ones I usually cover here. Actually, one newsletter, Intranets, didn't change; it just stopped [...]

One of my favorite of Tom Hanks' movies is the 1988 comedy Big. In it, Hanks portrays a little boy who makes a wish at a carnival and wakes up [...]

No, that's not a typo. The topics from the November/ December issues of The CyberSkeptic's Guide to Internet Research and Intranets might merge into areas you are not familiar with: [...]

In a recent nationally representative survey, the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project found that 91% of adults in the U.S. now use cellphones. The phones are used [...]

I was hired at Information Today, Inc. (then Learned Information, Inc.) partly because of who I knew. A friend told an acquaintance that I was looking for employment, and the [...]

Sometimes the word 'social' in social networks seems to be a misnomer. What happens to the people in the process? I've focused on two columns from Intranets (September 2013) that [...]

If you have ever checked out The New York Times best-seller lists, you might have noticed the Mass-Market Fiction category. Well, if a trend debuting last April in Philadelphia (and [...]

It isn't always easy to find a common thread that weaves through four of ITI's disparate newsletters. But once in a while, I get lucky. In their July/August issues, The [...]

There's a cute series of commercials on television (from a well-known phone carrier) in which a man sits at a pint-size table with a group of kids and asks them [...]

If you're looking for a site that provides a more specialized, focused search experience or if you have any clients with special needs due to a disability, then read on. [...]

When I started working at Learned Information, Inc. (which eventually became Information Today, Inc.), proper social behavior meant knowing how friendly to be with co-workers and whether it was OK [...]

The January/February 2013 issue of The Information Advisor (IA) marks its 25th year of helping readers find the best tools, technologies, and sources for conducting top-quality business research. In honor [...]

If you find one cockroach, that's usually just the beginning of your problems. * blamestorming: A group process where participants analyze a failed project and look for scapegoats other than [...]

If you're interested in accessing a world of data for free via an open access platform, the most recent issue of The CyberSkeptic's Guide to Internet Research (January 2013) will [...]

When I was young, the word 'gamification' (with its unique concept of using rewards to promote social engagement) didn't exist in any dictionary. But times have changed, and the November/December [...]

The word 'embed' has more than a few definitions, including to set in earth (as in planting flowers) or to fix firmly (as in setting tiles in cement), according to [...]

It's November, and the birds have already started their migration to warmer locales. Appropriately, this month's column looks at a search engine of a different feather and then takes a [...]

It's October, and that means playoff and World Series time in baseball parlance. But as I'm writing this column, it's actually mid-August, and my Washington (D.C.) Nationals currently possess the [...]

Ah, September. It's back to school for most students, from 3-year-old preschoolers to Ph.D. candidates. In honor of this sacred time, I'll write while you read about tips from The [...]